Smartwool

How sustainable is Smartwool?

This scree­ning has been done by Fai­rify on March 26^th 2020

Smart­wool is a brand mainly manu­fac­tu­ring pro­ducts from merino wool. The com­pany is a sub­si­diary of VF Cor­po­ra­tion, one of the world’s lar­gest appa­rel com­pa­nies. It’s unfor­tu­na­te that VF Cor­po­ra­tion publishes a sin­gle sus­tai­na­bi­lity report that covers all of its brands and lea­ves us without spe­ci­fic infor­ma­tion per brand. This makes it sig­ni­fi­cantly har­der to jud­ge their indi­vi­dual per­for­man­ces. That being said, the com­pany does offer a rela­ti­vely ela­bo­ra­te sus­tai­na­bi­lity report, which shows that it’s defi­ni­tely open to chan­ge and wants to improve.

A slow moving fashion giant

The cor­po­ra­tion was foun­ded over a cen­tury ago and has kept crea­ting and acqui­ring new brands, which resul­ted into a port­fo­lio of over thirty well-known brands. With its acqui­si­tions of Tim­ber­land in 2011, through a two billion USD deal, and ath­le­tic brand Altra in 2018, the com­pany is still gro­wing. VF Cor­po­ra­tion sta­tes that it directly employs over 68,000 peo­ple glo­bally, and nearly a million earn their inco­me by making VF pro­ducts. With such a port­fo­lio, it’s no sur­pri­se that the mate­rials for the pro­ducts ori­gi­na­te in nearly sixty dif­fe­rent coun­tries. Con­si­de­ring all the­se big num­bers, it’s inter­es­ting to see how the com­pany is tac­kling sus­tai­na­ble deve­lop­ment for its ope­ra­tions. Chan­ge comes slowly for a giant like VF. In terms of mate­rial sour­cing, it still uses uncer­ti­fied leather and a lar­ge chunk of pol­yes­ter and nylon are vir­gin mate­rials. Out­door appa­rel is not yet PFC-free and there’s a lot of room for impro­ve­ment con­cer­ning sus­tai­na­ble cot­ton. The­re are tar­gets for impro­ving the­se sta­tis­tics though. By 2025, the com­pany wants to sour­ce 100% more sus­tai­na­ble cot­ton and in that same year at least 50% of their nylon and pol­yes­ter has to be recy­cled. The­se tar­gets logi­cally indi­ca­te that currently there’s a lar­ge per­cen­ta­ge of unsus­tai­na­ble mate­rials being used for their products.

A start towards cli­ma­te action

VF’s supply chain is rela­ti­vely trans­pa­rent. The com­pany has done a pilot in which it published tra­cea­bi­lity maps for some of its pro­ducts. We can also find its faci­li­ties on the Open Appa­rel Index, which offers us insight into whe­re its gar­ments are pro­du­ced. VF Cor­po­ra­tion sta­tes that it’s wor­king on publishing sour­ce maps for its full supply chain, which can be the step­ping sto­ne towards full trans­pa­rency con­cer­ning their sco­pe 3 emis­sions. The­se currently exclu­de pro­duc­tion and mate­rial emis­sions, which are gene­rally the big­gest chunk of emis­sions for clothing com­pa­nies. But even though not everything is trac­ked and mea­su­red yet, the mul­ti­na­tio­nal cor­po­ra­tion is taking cli­ma­te action. Currently, it’s wor­king with the Higg Index to mea­su­re envi­ron­men­tal per­for­man­ce in its own faci­li­ties to impro­ve water effi­ciency and was­te. VF Cor­po­ra­tion has also put Scien­ce Based Tar­gets in pla­ce, which aim to redu­ce Sco­pe 1 and 2 emis­sions by 55% and Sco­pe 3 emis­sions by 30% by 2030. There’s a com­mit­ment to pur­cha­sing 100% rene­wa­ble energy across owned and ope­ra­ted faci­li­ties by 2025, which is currently 14%.

An enor­mous supply chain

Wor­kers’ rights are a very com­plex ele­ment for a com­pany with such a huge num­ber of fac­to­ries and peo­ple who work on its pro­ducts. Pro­duc­tion takes pla­ce in a lot of risk-pro­ne coun­tries whe­re mal­prac­ti­ce is always lur­king around the cor­ner. To tac­kle this issue, VF drew up a Code of Con­duct that covers basic wor­kers’ rights, such as work­pla­ce safety and maxi­mum weekly wor­king hours. But defi­ning stan­dards in a Code of Con­duct is the first step to take. What mat­ters more, is actually uphol­ding the­se stan­dards. VF Cor­po­ra­tion sta­tes that it audi­ted 95% of fac­to­ries in 2018 (2,319 audits). The­se are con­duc­ted either by the com­pany itself or by a third party. Audits con­duc­ted by com­pa­nies them­sel­ves carry the risk of being less trans­pa­rent about actual per­for­man­ce and that’s why an audit by a renow­ned third party is gene­rally more trust­worthy. Whi­le it’s great that VF Cor­po­ra­tion con­ducts a lar­ge num­ber of audits, the qua­lity of the­se audits and trans­pa­rency con­cer­ning who actually con­ducts them needs to be impro­ved. Besi­des that, the­re is no proof that VF Cor­po­ra­tion pays wor­kers a living wage.

A long road ahead

With great power comes great res­pon­si­bi­lity. As one of the lea­ders in the fashion industry, VF has the pos­si­bi­lity to show the enti­re industry that chan­ge is pos­si­ble and rai­se the bar for ever­yo­ne invol­ved. The cor­po­ra­tion is abso­lu­tely chan­ging for the bet­ter and, with some serious tar­gets in pla­ce, the pos­si­ble impact it can make is pretty huge. But, as it stands, this is still a com­pany that has pro­du­ced in a very unsus­tai­na­ble man­ner for many years and has inhe­ri­ted a lot of sys­tems from pre­vious eras. So, whi­le chan­ge is defi­ni­tely coming, it’s a long road ahead.

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